The Most Secretly Bostonian Moments From ‘Love Is Blind’ Boston

Reality dating shows have never been my lobotomy of choice, but when I found out Love Is Blind had recorded a season in Boston, I was intrigued. As a Massachusetts (with no due respect to Morgan Wallen, the real “God’s Country”) native and former Boston resident, I had to see how it played out. How would a group of men possessing the emotional availability of a pile of cinder blocks mesh with an unseen cadre of women who would spit on Derek Jeter’s shoes if given the opportunity?

If your experience with Love Is Blind is as limited as mine was, here is the premise as best as I understand it: A group of single men “dates” a group of single women in various one-on-one combinations, but each date takes place while each party is in a separate “pod” (short for “room that looks like a podcast studio”) where they can hear but not see the other. That premise felt especially thrilling this season; I was eager to find out how the Boston accent would fare as an entry point to love. The goal for each person on the show is to winnow down the potential mates to someone they can really hear a future with before they ever lay eyes on one another. Ideally, for the purposes of the show, the couples get married during the course of the season, a prospect that terrifies me. Between dates, the gender-segregated groups meet up to commiserate and strategize. (I think it would be neat if one of those connections led to romance, but on this show love is always supposed to be blind, and never gay.) With season 11 of the show set in Boston and the first five episodes having just premiered on Netflix, I was excited to see how my hometown—I grew up 10 miles outside the city limits but lived within them for several years, so get off my ass—was portrayed onscreen.

There are some disappointments for sure. The letter R is spoken out loud in most of the standard places you’d see it written down. And the show’s pod-centric format doesn’t give the viewer a chance to appreciate the city’s historical landmarks, world-class museums, or even Fenway Park.

Love Is Blind Season 11 does give us many beautiful Boston moments, though; for instance, it opens with a discussion of who had a more impressive comeback, Jesus Christ or Tom Brady after spotting the Atlanta Falcons a 25-point lead in Super Bowl LI. But there were also some more subtle moments that evoke Beantown’s rich culture, and I’d like to spotlight a few of those for you.

Jax’s Brutal Honesty

The casual bluntness that Jax expresses toward her pod dates transported me immediately home. Her sincerity isn’t cruel, but it is as bracing as the frigid and occasionally toxic waters at Carson Beach in South Boston. Not that she would know: “I don’t really fuck with Southie,” she tells Morrey on an early date, after he—an amateur boxer and cornhole mogul—brings up his familiarity with the neighborhood. (Morrey says other men in the lounge have dubbed him the most Boston of them all, but he honorably points out that he’s from the nearby suburb of Braintree.) She also responds to a flirtation concerning someone having nice teeth with the accurate but abrasive reply: “You can be ugly and still have nice teeth.” No gentle Southern “bless his heart” euphemisms here. Just raw Bostonian candor.

To be clear, I do not mean this as a criticism. Where I’m from, it’s a show of respect to let someone know exactly where you stand on any and all issues without reservation. And on a show based on striking an immediate connection rooted in personality, there’s something both refreshing and utilitarian about refusing to be on one’s best behavior. (Though I will say, anytime a woman has called me “Joshuer,” she has followed it up with an observation about my appearance or personality that I would rather have gone my whole life without knowing about myself.)

Cam’s Relocation Plans

Cam truly contains multitudes. He kicks off his dates with a series of puns meant to show off his sense of humor (for example, the perfectly local-sounding setup/punch line: What do you call a chicken staring at a bowl of lettuce? Chicken sees a salad) that might incidentally offer proof that he’s ready to be a dad. But he also shares stories of love of African music he cultivated while living in Ghana, where he once sewed a dress as a gift for his crush back home. He’s living in Dorchester again now, though he admits he often considers moving away. Contemplating leaving Boston is a feature of basically every movie that takes place in Boston. It’s like watching a Good Will Hunting reenactment, although it’s worth noting that that film was written by a couple of guys from Cambridge, across an entire river.

Sarah’s Accent (In One Specific Situation)

Early in their courtship, John asks Sarah if his glasses would be a deal-breaker. As a flattering point of comparison, she invokes the famously bespectacled “Clahk Kent.” But she does not accept another major reveal.

“I think vaccines ahh safe,” she asserts, as a health care professional, when John slips in the fact that he wasn’t keen on getting a Covid shot. Widespread messaging around public health is often—at least in my experience—accent neutral. It doesn’t feel like the time for regional specificity. (“Y’all better wash y’all hands,” feels a little folksy as disease prevention, and a “yinz” would seem just as casual.) But why not convey that information naturally? The comfort of receiving life-saving care in a voice that sounds like the people you grew up trusting is a helpful reminder that smart, informed people come from all corners of the world. And, as we covered earlier, they often stay in those corners.

Iman’s Cosplay Confession

How can you help but be charmed when Iman cautiously admits that cosplay is one of his cherished pastimes? That kind of unguarded admission was not always rewarded when I was growing up. It’s hard to balance the twin Massachusetts experiences of not wanting to show weakness while also being aggressively psyched about your passions, even when they’re not the Patriots. When Morrey (the cast member who feels most directly plucked from The Town, one of his favorite movies) confesses “I don’t open up a lot,” I felt that. But it’s also a miracle that I’m admitting to having any kind of feeling in public.

It warmed my heart to see Iman’s vulnerability met with acceptance, and it brought me similar joy to see Boston representation for Black men who like to do nerdy shit. Boston may be a small metropolis, but it is a diverse one, contrary to popular belief. It’s also home to refugees like the consistently-smitten contestant Benita, whose family fled the Balkan Wars. I do wish the Black people on the show were given a little more airtime up front, which also feels sadly in accord with popular depictions of Boston, and sometimes its real history as well.

But all in all, Bostonians are not a monolith. Although, as we learn in episode two, during a moment so on the nose it felt conspicuous, people of all races there run on Dunkin’. And I think that’s beautiful too.